


Hopelessly gone

by PetrichorIllusions



Category: Kaleidotrope (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Kissing, Other, The author blatantly projected her anxiety onto Drew, canon whom?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 12:37:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15930596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetrichorIllusions/pseuds/PetrichorIllusions
Summary: After the guy who keeps having sex toys delivered to Harrison almost sets their dorm on fire, Harrison needs somewhere to stay. Naturally, Drew offers to let him stay at his. What could go wrong, right? (Hint: it ends in kissing)(No longer canon-compliant, because Episode 6 Went There)





	Hopelessly gone

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the majority of this before Episode 6 came out and did That(TM), so we're ignoring everything that happened in that, except for the bits I liked and stole for this i.e Drew doing silly voices to make Harrison smile.  
> Also I honestly can't remember when I started this right now, but I'm pretty sure inspiration came from the Discord, so thanks to everyone there! Drew writing Drarry fanfic is based on DrowningInStarlight's fic, all of which I'd recommend!

They’re on air when the text comes through. Which, you know. They _are_ a text-in show.

“To all listeners staying at Prine Hall, your RA wants you to know that there’s been an incident, that nobody’s hurt, but there’s a lot of smoke damage so if you have somewhere else you can stay, you should.”

“Did you say Prine?”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck.” Harrison grabs his phone and starts texting frantically.

“Is.. everything okay?” Drew asks after a moment or two.

“It’s my dorm,” Harrison replies, distracted. He looks up, finally, to meet Drew’s worried gaze. “Could you— play a song, or something?”

“Harrison-”

“Sorry. I just- need to be sure everyone’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course- I mean. It said no one was hurt, right? So I’m sure-”

Harrison’s phone pings.

Drew can see the tension physically drain from his shoulders as he reads the text.

“They’re okay.” He breathes. He closes his eyes for a moment.

“Okay.” He says when he opens them again. “Okay, it’s fine.”

“You sure?” Drew asks.

“Yes.” He says, though it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself still. “My roommate was out, she and her girlfriend are okay. Let’s... move on.”

“Oh, uh, okay. Listeners, send us in some texts.”

“And make sure they’re good and juicy to distract me from potentially having all my stuff ruined.” Harrison cuts in.

 

They manage to keep going for a bit longer, debating the merits of breakfast food and whether they deserve to be time-restricted, but Harrison stays distracted. Drew tries his best to keep them going, but he finds it’s a lot more difficult, now. Now he’s used to having Harrison there to throw things back at him.

 

— — - - — — - — —

 

Harrison gets some more texts through later on, and Drew can tell they aren’t show-related by the expression on Harrison’s face.

“You could stay at mine.” He blurts out. “You know, if there’s too much smoke damage.” He looks so surprised at himself that Harrison has to bite his lip to keep from laughing. He knows how Drew would respond to laughter, though, and they’ve worked so hard to get this far.

His thinking has taken a moment too long though, and Drew starts babbling his way out.

“I mean — I’m sure you have a lot of other friends and floors who you could sleep on. But my roommate practically lives with her girlfriend now so she’s never around so you could have the bed— but I guess—”

“Drew.” He interrupts. “Honestly, that would be great.”

“... oh. Okay. Um. Great. Cool”

A text comes through to save him, and he’s honestly proud that he doesn’t say _oh thank god_ out loud.

 

— — -   - —   — - — —

 

“So, uh-” Drew starts, at the end of the show.

“Do you mind if I go home, first, and then come back to yours?” Harrison asks him. “I want to see how bad the damage is.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you later then.” He hugs Drew absent-mindedly and wanders off, leaving Drew frozen. They’ve never hugged before. He stands for a bit longer, until Hal stops in front of him to blatantly laugh at him, and then he thinks _Right_. And goes off to try and make his dorm look less of a tip.

 

— — -   - —   — - — —

 

Harrison looks positively stormy when Drew finally lets him in.

“How was it?” Drew asks, tentative. He’s not sure how Harrison’s lips can get tighter, but he watches them manage it all the same.

“Remember the guy who kept getting sex toys delivered?”

“How could I forget?”

“He got a smoke machine. It was cheap and badly made and it... It went badly.”

“And it smoked out your entire dorm?”

“And it smoked out my entire dorm. And all my clothes. And all the food I had. And possibly more than that, but I can’t tell because it’s still so smokey that my asthma can’t handle it.”

“It’ll get covered by your insurance, right? If anything needs replacing?”

“Yeah, that’s what my RA said. And then he made me leave cos I was ‘wheezing’ and ‘sounded like I was about to die.’”

“Are you... okay now?”

“I sat outside for a while and then I got coffee, so it should be fine. I promise I won’t die in your dorm room.”

“That’s... not actually what I was worried about, but good.”

They’ve been hovering awkwardly just inside the door, but now Drew moves back. Harrison tries to be subtle in looking around, but his curiosity gets the better of him.

 

As he spots Drew’s bookshelf, his glower and all pretence at not being nosy drop.

“I didn’t have you down as a rainbow shelves kind of guy.” He tells him.

“I’m experimenting,” Drew replies. “I had time, so I figured I’d try it. I don’t like not having all my series’ together, though, I’m going to have to change it back at some point.”

 Harrison isn’t really paying attention, tracing his fingers over the spines instead.

“Can I read this one?” He asks, picking one out.

“Sure.” Drew shrugs.

“Thanks.” He takes it over to Drew’s roommate’s bed and collapses down onto it.

“What’s the C stand for?” Harrison asks, opening the book up and immediately spotting the bookplate Drew puts in all his favourite books.

“Callum.” He says, and sees a lightbulb go on above Harrison’s head. He wonders if today is the day he’ll have to admit it. But Harrison just frowns, and Drew allows himself a tiny smile for having gotten away with it again. He grabs his laptop instead, and the spend a while in comfortable silence.

 

— — -   - —   — - — —

 

It doesn’t last long, of course. Harrison is far, far too curious.

“What are you writing?” He asks. It’s the wrong question, he realises, as he sees Drew’s walls slam up.

“Just stuff for school.” He replies, overly casual.

“Yeah? I wish my courses were that interesting.”

Drew shrugs. “I like writing.” He says, simply. “And when people want something specific of me, it’s just... fun to see how what I write gets interpreted.”

“And what about when people don’t want something specific of you? What do you like writing then?”

Drew’s cheeks dust with colour, and Harrison narrows his eyes.

“Are you the real author of that Drarry Sidlesmith au? Because that’s clearly someone on campus, and I know how much you ship them.”

“There’s a Drarry Sidlesmith au.” Drew says flatly, stuck between confusion and amusement.

“Well, it’s not _technically_ Sidlesmith. But for all intents and purposes it is, even down to the Sockhop and the rose tradition.”

“Maybe lots of schools have sockhops and rose traditions!”

“Not like this. It’s _definitely_ written by someone who goes here. Or went here, I guess. Even the coffee shop is basically Kishi’s!”

“Wait, are you the person who’s been leaving flames because Ginny’s started flirting with Hermione again?”

Their eyes lock.

“Ah, fuck,” Drew mutters, drowned out entirely by Harrison’s shrieked,

“A-HA!” And then they’re both laughing.

 

— — -   - —   — - — —

 

Drew doesn’t really go back to writing after that. They talk, and talk, and then Drew remembers a video that Harrison needs to see, and, well, there’s really no point sending it when Harrison could just come over there and watch it, and then one cat video turns into three or four or perhaps a lot more, and then suddenly Drew looks up and realises that they’re pressed together from shoulder to hip, faces dangerously close.

 He stops himself from flinching, just, but it’s still enough that Harrison - so very very close - notices.

“Drew?” He asks, and he’s gentle, and lovely, and he puts his hand on Drew’s wrist and Drew just - panics.

He hears the words coming out of his mouth as if from a distance - some blather about the time and how late it is, how they should probably get to sleep.

 

Harrison sighs, rolling away enough to give him some space.

“How long are we going to keep doing this for, Drew?” He asks, softly.

Drew won’t meet his eyes, can’t; can’t even put words together.

“Okay,” Harrison says. “Okay.”

And Drew doesn’t know how to parse it, because he was listening for the disappointment, for the accusation, but all he hears is acceptance, and gentleness, and a lack of all the expectations that normally ruin everything right now.

 

He wants to take it back, suddenly. Wants to tell Harrison to stay, tell him all he really wants. But Harrison is already slipping off the bed, a smile (if a sad one) on his face.

 

— — -   - —   — - — —

 

Harrison chatters as they get ready for bed, trying to fill the gaps in conversation that Drew can’t help but leave. He’s withdrawn inside his head, berating himself. He knows that what he's doing to Harrison isn't fair. He knows what he's doing to _himself_ isn't really fair, either. But he's spent so long not allowing himself to want things that it's difficult, now. There's a mental block somewhere in his head, and no matter how hard he tries to get round it, it always seems to reappear to trip him up. 

Time is passing, he knows, but it's all kind of a blur, and it isn’t until Drew has turned the lights out and Harrison is saying,

“Goodnight, Drew,” oh so softly, that he finally snaps himself out of it.

  

He’s glad it’s dark, so Harrison can’t see his face as he works himself up to the decision.

“Wait, no.” He says. “I-”

 _Fuck it_ , he thinks, and gets up.

“Drew-?”

He pads over, and sits down on the side of Harrison’s bed. Harrison sits up, and he pushes himself back against the wall.

 

He steels himself to look over, and he isn’t expecting it to calm him. He knows what he needs to say, what he should have said weeks ago. But all that shows on Harrison’s face through the half-light is gentleness, and openness. He doesn’t know if he’s ever met someone so accepting.

“I’m sorry I’m so bad at this.”

Harrison makes a noise as if he’s going to negate that, but Drew shakes his head.

“No, don’t, I- I know. I’m terrible at being friends, and I’m terrible at -” he takes a shaking breath. “At whatever else this is.”

“Drew-”

“I’m sorry I’m not the perfect trope you wanted.” He says over him.

Harrison freezes, just for a second. Making sure he heard the subtext right.

“But you do... want this to be our trope?” He asks, and it’s barely a whisper.

Drew can’t look at him, but he nods, once, his stare stubbornly on the wall opposite. So he misses as Harrison starts to smile.

“I don’t want this to be our trope.” He tells Drew. He says it so cheerfully that it takes Drew a moment to process it, but Harrison carries on as his face starts to fall.

“I _don’t_ want this to be a trope. I know how you feel about them. You think they’re fleeting and whimsical and not a good basis for something good. And I know that scares you.”

Drew finally turns to face him as he kneels forward.

“I know you’re not perfect, Drew. I know you’re scared, and jaded, and sad, and, and, so many other things that make it hard for you to trust me. But I know you’re trying. I know how much you care about everything, even if you pretend you don’t. We’re not blindly going into this, neither of us.”

They’re so close he can feel Drew shaking.

“I want this, Drew. I don’t want it because it’s a meet-cute. I want this because you’re kind, and sweet, and because you read to me in silly voices just to make me smile. Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to know you for the rest of my life, to always have you there, to have my back. Drew—”

 

And Drew leans up, and presses their lips together.

 

It’s a brief kiss, and their foreheads rest together after, both breathing heavily, the tension finally broken.

Drew brings a hand up to rest on Harrison’s cheek.

“I am so, hopelessly, gone for you.” He tells him, and Harrison beams so wide that Drew can do nothing else but push him down and kiss him again.


End file.
